Facebook Bringing Voice and Video Calling Back to Main App After Moving Them to Messenger

[MacRumors]

Facebook is re-adding voice and video calling features to its main Facebook app after moving the features to Messenger back in 2014, reports Bloomberg.

Users in some countries including the United States are now able to make voice or video calls directly from the Facebook app. As of now, Facebook is testing the feature, which is meant to cut down on the number of times that Facebook users need to swap over to the Messenger app.

Messenger and Facebook used to be a single app, but in 2014, Facebook split them into separate apps and removed Messenger functionality from Facebook. Customers were forced to download the Messenger app to send private messages to other Facebook users or to make phone calls using the Facebook platform.

Facebook has also been testing adding a limited version of the Messenger inbox to the main Facebook app, further expanding what can be done without having to switch to Messenger.

Connor Hayes, director of product management at Messenger said that Facebook is beginning to consider Messenger as a service rather than a standalone app. "You're going to start to see quite a bit more of this over time," Hayes told Bloomberg. He said that Messenger is the "connective tissue" for people to communicate regardless of which service they're using. Facebook believes that a unified messaging infrastructure will keep its users engaged in the Facebook ecosystem rather than using alternative services like iMessage.

Facebook combined messaging between Instagram and Messenger last year, a feature that the company also plans to bring to WhatsApp. Deep integrations could make it harder for the Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp apps to be split should Facebook lose the antitrust lawsuit it is facing. The United States FTC has accused Facebook of a social networking monopoly and has called for the company to divest Instagram and WhatsApp to bolster competition.

Article Link: Facebook Bringing Voice and Video Calling Back to Main App After Moving Them to Messenger

 

[macsound1]

It makes the most sense for it to be in both apps. Unified for Facebook social network users, available separately for communication only users.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Hopefully, They don't record the the voices and the video. It is added with security and the features.

 

[vagos]

Messenger is the only reason I'm not deleting my facebook account. If they phase out messenger I'm done with facebook once and for all.

 

[randyhudson]

In other words, Facebook wants you to give it 24-7 microphone access because the microphone access you gave their messenger app isn’t recording as much as it could.

 

[DanteHicks79]

They really can't make up their minds, can they?

 

[GeoStructural]

They should have never split them in the first place.

 

[midkay]

meant to cut down on the number of times that Facebook users need to swap over to the Messenger app

After they themselves decided on moving messaging and calling out of the Facebook app in the first place. Hilarious. Wasn’t the obnoxious swapping between apps the obvious downside from day 1?

 

[swiftRabbit]

They really can't make up their minds, can they?

Nor can the users

 

[bLackjackj]

Messenger is the only reason I'm not deleting my facebook account. If they phase out messenger I'm done with facebook once and for all.

That makes absolutely no sense. The data resides on the same servers! In fact it's the same Messenger protocols, but just in the fb app. Lol

 

[sudo-sandwich]

Guess they got enough people onto Messenger that it's time to stop nagging other FB users about it.

 

[sudo-sandwich]

After they themselves decided on moving messaging and calling out of the Facebook app in the first place. Hilarious. Wasn’t the obnoxious swapping between apps the obvious downside from day 1?

Yes, and the obvious upside was not having to install that monster of an app just for messaging. This is mostly the best of both worlds now.

 

[dampfnudel]

I think I know what Zuck’s dream is now. One day a message will appear to every Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp user telling them that on a certain date all of those apps will shut down and you’ll have to download a new app that integrates all of the functionality and even the style of those apps into one. After you sign into the new app (name?), all of your FB posts, Instagram photos and WhatsApp contacts/chats will be accessible once again in 2 or 3 separate locations in the unified app. And before people say if he does that, he’ll have a MySpace on his hands, I think he may not have to worry about most jumping ship given how entrenched a lot of people are with Instagram, WhatsApp and even older people with FB/Messenger.

 

[willchris]

Facebook is re-adding voice and video calling features to its main Facebook app after moving the features to Messenger back in 2014, reports Bloomberg.

Users in some countries including the United States are now able to make voice or video calls directly from the Facebook app. As of now, Facebook is testing the feature, which is meant to cut down on the number of times that Facebook users need to swap over to the Messenger app.

Messenger and Facebook used to be a single app, but in 2014, Facebook split them into separate apps and removed Messenger functionality from Facebook. Customers were forced to download the Messenger app to send private messages to other Facebook users or to make phone calls using the Facebook platform.

Facebook has also been testing adding a limited version of the Messenger inbox to the main Facebook app, further expanding what can be done without having to switch to Messenger.

Connor Hayes, director of product management at Messenger said that Facebook is beginning to consider Messenger as a service rather than a standalone app. "You're going to start to see quite a bit more of this over time," Hayes told Bloomberg. He said that Messenger is the "connective tissue" for people to communicate regardless of which service they're using. Facebook believes that a unified messaging infrastructure will keep its users engaged in the Facebook ecosystem rather than using alternative services like iMessage.

Facebook combined messaging between Instagram and Messenger last year, a feature that the company also plans to bring to WhatsApp. Deep integrations could make it harder for the Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp apps to be split should Facebook lose the antitrust lawsuit it is facing. The United States FTC has accused Facebook of a social networking monopoly and has called for the company to divest Instagram and WhatsApp to bolster competition.

Article Link: Facebook Bringing Voice and Video Calling Back to Main App After Moving Them to Messenger

I keep wishing for Facebook to go away but given the recent news I now want them to grow big enough so they get forced to sell Instagram.

 

[Thebrochure]

I honestly can not believe that people still use Facebook. With everything we've found out about them mining data, spying on you, selling your private information... it's truly remarkable that they keep on going like this.

 

[cyanite]

In other words, Facebook wants you to give it 24-7 microphone access because the microphone access you gave their messenger app isn’t recording as much as it should.

It doesn’t need that access and only asks if you use some voice or recording feature. It also can’t access it covertly.

 

[cyanite]

I honestly can not believe that people still use Facebook. With everything we've found out about them mining data, spying on you, selling your private information... it's truly remarkable that they keep on going like this.

It’s a useful tool for many people and the average person hasn’t really suffered any tangible damage from using it.

 

[lyngo]

They should have never split them in the first place.

I’m glad they did. It allowed me to deactivate but keep my messenger account.

 

[randyhudson]

It doesn’t need that access and only asks if you use some voice or recording feature. It also can’t access it covertly.

So when your screen is off, you can tell if FB is accessing your mic? How does that work?

 

[return2sendai]

kcFu fof Facebook.

Ha! Beat the algorithm!

 

[nikhilnagaraj24]

So when your screen is off, you can tell if FB is accessing your mic? How does that work?

While I hate F*****berg and all his products and dont trust a word that he or that company says, off late it has become easier to know what apps have used the Apple services on iPhones. In the most layman terms, what I mean is, any apps requesting access to the mic or camera has to 'ask for permission' from Apple(on-prem) on your phone and depending on what the user had elected previously (grant access to mic and camera or otherwise), everytime those services are being used, your iPhone shows an orange dot for mic use or a green dot for camera use on the status bar. iOS15 will also have a privacy report (likely released with iOS 15.1 or 15.2) that lists all recent privacy activities in the Settings app (For ex: when and how many times an App has used the mic in the recent past). I dont trust FB and other Apps by them, but I do trust Apple on this.

 

[sracer]

I honestly can not believe that people still use Facebook. With everything we've found out about them mining data, spying on you, selling your private information... it's truly remarkable that they keep on going like this.

I honestly can not believe that people still use the internet. With everything we've found out about them mining data, spying on you, selling your private information... it's truly remarkable that they keep on going like this.

So when your screen is off, you can tell if FB is accessing your mic? How does that work?

This is why I don't have any Facebook apps installed on my devices but use a web browser. The FB apps absolutely have access to the mic on my iOS and Android devices.... even when the apps aren't running.

My wife and I have confirmed this on multiple occasions. I have an Android phone, she has an iPhone. I turned my phone completely off and had her make sure that the Facebook apps is not running on her iPhone. We then had a conversation where we deliberately talked about something that we had never talked about or searched on the web for.
In less than 24 hours, she saw ads in her FB timeline for the thing we were talking about.

We repeated the experiment with a different topic with her iPhone turned completely off, and my phone on but FB app closed. Ads for that topic appeared in my FB timeline.

After a few more tests, we ended up removing the apps from our devices.

 

[kingtj1971]

I honestly can not believe that people still use Facebook. With everything we've found out about them mining data, spying on you, selling your private information... it's truly remarkable that they keep on going like this.

I think most Facebook regulars strongly dislike the way the service runs things, but they find it too difficult to leave the platform -- with no other reasonable alternatives out there.

That's the proverbial boat I find myself in. I have a lot of people I want to stay in touch with, but don't necessarily want to keep in regular contact with them some traditional way (like phone conversations or emails back and forth). Facebook is the most efficient tool I've found for that. It sort of "pushes" things to your feed that they think is worthy of posting about - so at a glance, you get updates on what they're doing. (Did old Uncle So-and-So go on vacation in Cancun this week? Is your old buddy from college still drag racing his modified cars?) I only have so much free time and I try to focus it on my closest friends who I'm really going to hang out with over a weekend, etc. That doesn't mean I want to lose all knowledge of what the others are up to.

On top of that, it also makes a decent free place to list and sell things, and to find out about local events coming up.

Sure they "sell my information" but I don't tend to share much that I care if they know or monetize. Truth is, a lot of the stuff they data-mine to sell is info you can obtain elsewhere anyway. (Try buying a list of targeted addresses/names/numbers sometime from one of the companies that sells them for marketing purposes. They already know a LOT about everyone, to the point you can buy lists to hit people in certain zip codes in certain income brackets who have specific interests and hobbies, and work in certain fields while voting a certain way.) Facebook has to pay to keep its lights on too and they don't bill me to use it or store my photos I share ....

 

[Vasilioskn]

People still use face book smh

 

[jseymour]

I honestly can not believe that people still use Facebook.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I still used it up until <looks...> the end of last year. It was nice for keeping up with far-flung family and IRL friends.

I finally felt obliged to discontinue my account when Facebook began to feel obliged to restrict users' above-and-beyond the clearly illegal or unequivocally immoral. Particularly when it became blatantly obvious they were applying their enforcement very selectively, and almost inevitably with a given social and political bias. Same with Twitter.

It’s a useful tool for many people and the average person hasn’t really suffered any tangible damage from using it.

Hmmm... that is certainly arguable. Beyond my complaints noted above: The argument can be made there has been plenty of downside to much of today's social media.

I'm old enough, and have been in tech long enough, to have been around when electronic mail first made its appearance. Back then it soon became apparent people had to be cautioned that one problem with e-mail was the lack of body language. The lack of instant feedback that one might be going off the reservation. It's impersonal nature, even when being used in a personal context. That problem exists in modern social media, but awareness of the problems attendant with its use has pretty much fallen by the wayside. Worse: People have begun taking their social media behavior into real life--then finding themselves completely astonished when things go horribly wrong, perhaps even escalating into violence.

So, yes: It can be a useful tool But to claim the average Jane or Joe haven't suffered any tangible downsides from its use? I don't know about that.